Sat 23 Jan 2010
Disconcerting standup reporting
Posted by DavidMitchell under General News
[2] Comments
And now the news…. We have all seen television correspondents doing standup reports in front of the White House, or of a house on fire, or of a food line in Haiti.
A quarter century ago when I was covering the insurrection in El Salvador for the old San Francisco Examiner, a gonzo TV reporter from the UK once told me his fantasy was to do a standup in the middle of a firefight with bullets flying all around him. It was a suicidal idea, of course, and he never tried it.
But here’s something that comes close, which I found earlier this month on Al Jazeera. It’s in a report now archived on YouTube describing India and Bangladesh rekindling diplomatic ties.
A short ways into the report, television journalist Prerna Suri does a standup in the middle of a New Delhi expressway with traffic appearing to barely miss her. It’s gratuitously nerve-wracking to watch, but it is good theater.
Friends who occasionally work in video tell me Al Jazeera didn’t use a “blue screen” to create an illusory background. They think the standup report may have been shot with a telephoto lens, which would compress the distance between the reporter and the vehicles behind her.
And even if the reporter is standing on a narrow median too low to be seen, it’s remarkable she never flinches as motor vehicles, some of them honking, crowd past her on both sides. Click on the following link and see if you can figure out how this disconcerting standup was shot. If you do, please submit a comment and perhaps you’ll get a job offer from Al Jazeera.
Post script: Professional cameraman Mark Allen of Inverness Park has provided an explanation, which is in the comment section. You might recall that last year Mark shot a 60 Minutes’s interview with chef Alice Waters, who hand-fed him a delicacy during the interview. Further update: Prerna Suri herself has now sent in a comment describing how the standup was shot.
After this posting was online, I wrote professional cameraman Mark Allen of Inverness Park, asking if he knew how this standup report was done. Mark has shot for television productions ranging from NFL Films to 60 Minutes, and he sent back the following.
“I noticed a couple things first off:
҉ۢ The microphone presence was different during the standup than the studio track. Done outside.
҉ۢ The reporter is softly lit from camera right and it seems to coincide with the diffused light in the background.
҉ۢ She seems to be standing on a curb of some kind, perhaps an island in the street. I use an island at Van Ness and Lombard in the City to shoot long lens at oncoming traffic. It appears that the camera (and cameraman!) are about to be run over but traffic is diverted very close to the island. Many Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War march stories carry shots like this to make a big crowd appear huge.
“• Finally, if you’ve shot on the streets in New Delhi, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Manila, or a thousand other crowded places, there are horns blaring constantly.
“It’s my opinion that this scene was shot in the street.”
Hi David,
It’s great to see viewers like you, who actually notice ‘different’ stand-ups.
This stand up in question was as mark rightly pointed out done on a curb (not in the middle of an expressway like you mentioned). It was right outside the India Gate.
I’m not sure if it was ‘disconcerting’ like you pointed out but thanks again for analysing this!
Cheers,
Prerna